A 26-year-old married black woman went to Medical College of Virginia's north teaching hospital for a safe and legal abortion around the middle of March, 1977. Because her family never went public with her abortion death, I will give her the pseudonym "Janice Mills."
Janice had already led a difficult life. She had married a 20-year-old man in 1965, when she was only 14 years old. She was working as a domestic servant when she opted to abort her 19-week baby.
The doctor chose the prostaglandin abortion method, which involved injecting prostaglandin F2 Alpha into her uterus. This would cause intense contractions to expel the baby. The contractions were more than three times stronger than the contractions of normal labor -- so intense that they would usually kill the baby. On some occasions, they were intense enough to decapitate the baby, tear the mother's cervix off as the baby was pushed against it, or cause the uterus to rupture entirely. This would happen because the powerful contractions would come on rapidly, within 10 to 15 minutes, not leaving adequate time for the cervix to soften.
Keep this in mind as we look at what JM's doctor decided to so.
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| Grok AI illustration |
About five minutes after the second dose, Janice reported severe headache and chest pain and difficulty breathing. Five minutes later she suffered a grand mal seizure and went into cardiac arrest.
Hospital staff were able to resuscitate Janice , but she had already suffered brain damage due to the oxygen deprivation. She was transferred to the intensive care unit, where she remained comatose. However, though JM's brain had been severely damaged, her uterus had not. The contractions continued and she expelled the dead baby 36 hours later.
Janice lingered for three weeks until her death on April 9. Her autopsy found swelling due to excessive fluid in her brain and lungs. Her official cause of death was "anoxic encephalopathy secondary to cardiac arrest induced by prostaglandin F2α."
In addition to her husband and parents, JM left behind a daughter and son along with numerous other family members.
Janice's death, as well as that of another women, were written up in a medical journal article in which the authors noted that the prostaglandin used in abortions, rapidly spreading through a woman's body, could cause heart spasms, excessive blood pressure in the lungs, and low blood oxygen. They noted that the doctor's decision to administer a second dose within five minutes bypassed safety margins and caused the levels of prostaglandin in Janice's blood to spike. She had also not been administered antiemetics or bronchodilators prior to the abortion, which would have reduced the risk of these complications. Janice was also not being adequately monitored during the procedure.
Sources:
- Death certificate
- "Sudden collapse and death of woman obtaining abortions induced with prostaglandin F2a," Cates and Jordaan, American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, February 15, 1979
- Grok AI reviews of medical literature, as linked above, generated November 1, 2025, linked above as relevant
- Marriage certificate
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